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Broken Dizzy Belt.....

ColinC

Well-known member
Joined
16 May 2013
Messages
1,030
With only one rotor arm spinning I have deduced my belt has broken - anyone had there dizzy rebuilt in Scotland?
 
Work commitments mean I'm not tackling this job myself so booked into Indy on Friday - bit disappointed really......
 
It can be DIY, but to be honest lining stuff up and remembering where all the leads go I'd leave it to someone who knows what they're doing.

http://p-car.com/diy/dualbelt/

My Indy will be changing mine as a maintenance item later this year :coat:
 
I was planning to change the belt on mine as preventative maintenance because I had heard it can cause damage if the second distributor stops in the wrong place when the belt breaks. But after reading a "how to do it" article in one of the Porsche magazines I bottled out and asked my indie to fit exchange reconditioned dizzys with new Beru ignition lead set at the same time. I decided it was worth it for peace of mind and knowing that the complete distributors were as good as new rather than just the belt. Just checked my invoice. £964 including complete pair of Dizzy's, leads and labour. That was in 2013.
 
For a Yorkshireman that was a lot of dough :eek:
 
Blimey I hope you caught that quick. I was in Northway years ago and a bloke was paying for a rebuild on his 993 caused by the belt in the dizzys breaking.
 
I too have heard horror stories however mine must have broken on a 200 mile trip from Aberdeen to home and the only issue I noticed was a slight but noticeable power loss........had a look over the car last night and when I removed the caps and cranked the engine by hand noticed the secondary rotor wasn't turning - everything else looks good,only changed them a couple of years ago, so I suppose it depends where the rotor arm stops. It starts on the button and I will remove the coil lead from the secondary dizzy before driving it the 10 miles to the Indy.....

Thanks for all the info - that Dutch fella explains things well - bookmarked👍
 
wozy said:
Blimey I hope you caught that quick. I was in Northway years ago and a bloke was paying for a rebuild on his 993 caused by the belt in the dizzys breaking.

Hey Wozy Indy agrees with you, reckons I was lucky - dizzy cap and rotor arm badly burned. 112,000 miles and 23 years on original belt - should be changed as preventative maintenance.
 
............preventative maintenance for your Distributor = very important !

8)....all parts & Infos : mail to [email protected]

All the Best,

Diddi

 
Chaps I have my distributer out at the moment and following the instructions on Dec's link above, seems fairly straightforward if handy with the tools otherwise I would leave it. You have to drill the old pin out and there's many parts that you need to understand how they go back together. Mine actually took some fairly gentle persuasion to come out of the block, which I can imagine if done with engine in situ would be a real pain.

Gives a good chance to clean up the block and dissis is places you can't easily reach.

Yes I can see why the labour cost would be high on this work.

Trev
 
Cameltoe & Heel said:
Chaps I have my distributer out at the moment and following the instructions on Dec's link above, seems fairly straightforward if handy with the tools otherwise I would leave it. You have to drill the old pin out and there's many parts that you need to understand how they go back together. Mine actually took some fairly gentle persuasion to come out of the block, which I can imagine if done with engine in situ would be a real pain.

Gives a good chance to clean up the block and dissis is places you can't easily reach.

Yes I can see why the labour cost would be high on this work.

Trev

This is a very interesting thread.

My car has done 126k miles and I can't find any record of the distributor belt ever being changed.

Having looked at the DIY links it looks relatively simple to remove the distributor unit. But then pretty complicated to get it apart and change the belt.

Is there a recommended supplier for a reconditioned exchange unit in the UK?

Also, if this is a waer and tear part that could have major implications when it fails, why on earth did Porsche position the belt inside the unit in a way where it needs to be entirely stripped down to install a replacement? That's just crazy.

Reminds me of replacing my alternator last year. I couldn't believe how much work and dismantling had to be undertaken to swap out the alternator for a reconditioned exchange unit compared to simply undoing two bolts on a normal car and completing the job in 10 minutes.
 
Good grief I just went on to the design 911 site to check if they sell, exchange unit distributors and they do.

Only £890 including VAT (plus £125 surcharge until the exchange unit is received) :eek: :eek:

That seems an awful lot of money to take somebody's old unit, open it up, change the belt, grease the bearings and put it back together again. Are there cheaper suppliers?

I see the list price for the belt and the pin is only £13, so maybe I will have a go at doing this myself afterall.

So do I spend my winter nights working on the 993 distributor, or do I fit the refurbished supercharger back on the Lagonda which is what I was planning to do?
 
I seem to recall a guy who wrote in one of the specialist Porsche mags had a crank failure on his 964.

This was the infamous Peppermint Pig.

I believe the crank snapped and this was attributed to broken distributor drive belt.
 
Kat1 said:
I seem to recall a guy who wrote in one of the specialist Porsche mags had a crank failure on his 964.

This was the infamous Peppermint Pig.

I believe the crank snapped and this was attributed to broken distributor drive belt.

Interesting

My next question was going to be how can a belt that does nothing apart from drive a little spinney thing outside of the engine cause catastrophic engine damage If it snaps?

I can understand it with a timing belt leaving valves in the down position when a piston comes up.

But if all spinney thing does is send Sparks to the spark plugs. Why does it damage main engine components when it stops spinning?

Marc
 

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